Time Keeps On Ticking
by Frankie McStein
Summary: Magnum wasn't too sure what was going at first; he was stuck and he was in pain. And he was starting to feel like he might not have much time left to figure things out. Higgins thought Magnum had dumped a client meeting on her. She never would have thought he had been grabbed by someone who wanted to get back at her.


He shivered violently and winced as his aching body protested its own involuntary movement. His breath hitched in his already burning chest as the shudder tugged on cuts and bruises and his head swam for a moment. The urge to reach and hold something nearly overwhelmed him before he remembered how futile it would be. A memory assaulted him, barely an hour old, of the feeling of his arms jerking painfully against their restraints. A groan was building in his throat but he fought it back. There was no point in wasting his breath when there was no one around who could hear him.

In at attempt to distract himself from the pain that was lancing through him, he let his eyes slide down and to the left, making the moment last as long as possible. Open eyes met his slightly unfocused gaze, eyes that were once a bright blue, glazed and sightless now. He tried to focus on the entire face, to take in the visage of the corpse that was once a living, breathing man, to wrack his brain to bring up some memory of the man who had so recently tried to kill him. But he was dizzy, simultaneously both weightless and leaden, and all he could focus on were the eyes.

For a second he thought the body sprawled out below him was shifting as the murky water flowed about its head, as if trying to free itself from the cold embrace. Then he realized he was fading away, the world around him swaying as his grip on consciousness slipped. The thought should have scared him, he was sure of that, but it just sort of settled into his brain, resting there without sparking any sort of reaction.

The first few moments after he opened his eyes again were full of confusion. Something had changed but he couldn't figure out what. By the time he realized the sun was setting, his eyes were already feeling heavy again. He tried to fight the impulse to go to sleep, forcing down the pain to talk quietly to himself.

"This can't happen," he told himself firmly. "Sleeping with a concussion isn't a death sentence. You don't need to be woken up every hour." He took a second to swallow hard, trying to ignore the taste of blood. "But there are still all sorts of things that can go wrong if you don't have someone keeping an eye on you." He couldn't ignore the way the words wavered and had to stop talking.

'_Stupid idea anyway,'_ he thought wryly, rolling his eyes only to make himself feel even more lightheaded. '_You've really done it this time. Thomas Magnum, you are in real trouble."_

It was bad enough when she thought Magnum had simply gone AWOL and she had been convinced he was dumping the client meeting on her in favour of a roll in the hay. But then, as the day wore on and his cell kept going to voicemail, she had gone from annoyed to concerned. Multiple attempts to track her errant security consultant down had led to Katsumoto promising to call by later if she would just please leave him alone to do his job for the rest of his shift. When her phone rang she didn't even check the screen, just grabbed it instantly.

"Magnum?"

"Not exactly." Higgins felt herself tense as the distorted voice crackled over the phone. "He won't be calling anyone." The voice droned on, the caller telling her they were 'Bracken' and claiming responsibility for the death of the 'aggravating little private eye.' She corrected them - "Actually he prefers Private Investigator. We both do." - almost instinctively, fingers flying over her laptop keyboard as she sidled her way into a call tracking software that members of the public were not supposed to know about.

"It doesn't matter what he prefers, not any more. Not now." Whoever it was they were using a VPN to mask the location of the VOIP call, and Higgins took a second to seethe at the idiot police procedurals that were making criminals harder to catch before switching to a not so official piece of software, one that even 'professionals' were not meant to have access to.

"While I do understand the urge to throttle Magnum, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me why you personally saw fit to kill my business partner." Thank goodness for her accent, making her sound aloof even while she was frantically trying to wrestle this absurdly coded program into submission. "I may need the information to claim on his life insurance."

"Life insurance?" Even with the digitised and distorted tone, the voice sounded incredulous. "You're worried about money?"

The program was making short work of the private servers employed by the VPN. Higgins just needed to keep the man, and, even with the distortion, she was almost certain it was a man, something about the voice tugging at her mind, talking for a while longer.

"Well, he is first on the company's listing. I'm likely to lose a lot of clients in the confusion following a name change." She only needed a few more seconds. The map had already shifted to Oahu, not that she expected the call to be coming from anywhere else. All she needed was a vague location, something to narrow down the search radius a little.

"Just as soon as he's good and dead, I'll send you proof to help convince your insurance company to pay out," the voice promised, and then the call dropped with a beep.

Higgins huffed in annoyance; first this Bracken claimed he had already killed Magnum, then he claimed he hadn't but was planning on it. And the software hadn't been able to eliminate more than a quarter of the island. She grabbed her mobile and dialled a nine and the first one when an alert from the front gate intercom popped up.

"Detective!" She couldn't hide the relief in her voice. "Please come straight through to the study. We seem to have a situation."

By the time Katsumoto had made his way to the study Higgins had the recording of the call queued up and was in the process of requesting access to a program being developed by an old friend that she thought might help reverse the vocal distortion. Not that she didn't think HPD's own lab techs were capable, it was just that she didn't have anything else to do and couldn't stand feeling helpless.

She watched Katsumoto as he listened to the recorded conversation and was gratified to see a look of concern spread over his face; if he was taking it seriously, then the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach was justified. He asked her to play the recording again, taking a second to commend her on recording her calls as a matter of course. And then they sat in silence for a moment, both taking the time to try to decide what they should do next.

"So," Katsumoto started, "the question is who is this person and why have they taken Magnum?" He looked at Higgins as she sighed to hide the anger that was starting to build.

"Actually, Detective, we should be asking if Magnum is still alive."

Magnum really didn't want to wake up. He was feeling...He didn't actually know the right word. Odd? Odd seemed to work. There was a strange sort of feeling in his arms that he just couldn't place. They weren't numb as such, but he certainly didn't feel like he had full control over them either. Not that he had actually tried to move them, that would require more energy than he felt he had. And that was another odd thing; he had just woken up, but he felt like he hadn't slept in days. His head felt thick with tiredness, his thoughts slow and hard to track.

Maybe he should try to wake up a little more just to try to figure out what on earth was going on. The little voice that was poking and prodding him into opening his eyes sounded suspiciously British, and he groaned. A spark of pain, bright white, started in his throat at the sound and seemed to grow, spreading over his entire body in a matter of a second. His eyes flew open as the adrenaline rush hit, and he remembered the events leading to his current situation with shocking clarity.

He'd been heading home, two coffees in hand. A peace offering of sorts, after a brain wave had led to him waking Higgins at three in the morning to badger her into running a check on their client's finances. The fact that his hunch had been right, that their client was being blackmailed, hadn't done much to improve Higgins' mood and Magnum had hoped the black forest mocha would help.

A shout had distracted him as he was fishing the car keys out of his pocket, and, before he knew it, something hard had jabbed him in the back and his entire body had locked up as electricity coursed through him. The last thing he could remember seeing was the coffee cups crashing to the ground, and he'd had just enough time to hope that Higgins would be mad enough about missing out on a free coffee to come looking for the person responsible before he'd blacked out.

"_Of course,"_ he thought, somewhat sadly, "_Higgins can't come hunting for her coffee if she never knew she was getting coffee in the first place."_

He tried to shift his arms, realizing now the odd feeling was from the lack of circulation. The car was on its side and he was on the top side, hanging by his seatbelt. Nice of his kidnapper to strap him in. Not so nice of the guy to have tied his wrists first, and he really didn't appreciate the way the guy had wrapped the rope around the seatbelt. There had to be some way he could get himself out of this mess. He wasn't sure what it was, but he was sure there had to be something he could do.

Maybe he could wriggle out of the seatbelt? If he could get to his feet, he could reach up and smash the window, using the glass to cut himself free. Just trying to take a deep breath made everything hurt, and he was pretty sure wriggling anything more than his fingers or toes was going to be an epic disaster. But he couldn't stand the idea of helplessly hanging around. The fact that he didn't even manage to groan at the bad pun told him he was worse off than he even suspected.

Sure enough, moving sent waves of pain and dizziness crashing down over him. All he managed to do was increase the strain on his already trembling arms and make the seatbelt dig in even tighter. He closed his eyes, hoping to help ease the rolling in his stomach, but all that did was make him realise how bone-achingly tired he felt. There was something wrong here, something more than bumps and bruises and being trapped in a wrecked car with a mysterious dead man. Magnum tried to check himself over without actually opening his eyes or moving his head, tensing muscles and moving what he could. Fire raced along his side, parallel to his spine, and he spent a sickeningly long ten seconds or so assuring himself his legs were only numb and not paralyzed.

How was it possible that he had gone from trying to do something nice to contemplating his own mortality so quickly? Because that's exactly what he was doing. Never mind that someone was bound to have missed him by now, that he was friends with people who could conceivably mobilize a small army to search for him, that he absolutely did not doubt that he would be found. Right now he was very alone and, although he would never admit it, more than a little concerned about his own wellbeing. The moon was rising overhead, not that he could see it, and, for the first time in a good long while, Magnum wondered if he would live to see the sun rise. He was starting to feel like he was running out of time.

T.C. watched with no small measure of concern as Higgins tore into whoever she was talking to on the phone. She had started out in English, her vowels becoming increasingly clipped as she became increasingly annoyed with the poor sap on the other end of the line. After a quarter of an hour or so, she had suddenly switched to Russian and T.C. and Rick had exchanged a series of increasingly wide-eyed looks as her tone had become ever more vicious.

It had been hard enough listening to her explaining who was behind Magnum's kidnapping as she tried desperately to push back whatever emotion she was feeling. A General, Roman Kuruakinsta, formally of the FSB, someone she had worked under while her MI6 assignments had taken her to Russia. They both noticed she steered clear of giving away too much information about her own activities during that time, but she wasted no time in telling them that Roman had been lining his pockets by selling state secrets to the Chinese government. She had seized the opportunity to establish 'Illyana' in a position of trust and exposed Roman who was thrown into a Siberan prison and left to rot.

After the audio program had done its job and reversed the distortion, she had recognised his voice instantly. It hadn't taken her long to discover that, six years after he'd been arrested, Roman's wife had smothered their two sons before taking her own life, using the disgraced General's own firearm on herself. What Higgins hadn't managed to find was information on Roman's escape from prison, something the phone call was meant to clear up.

"I am telling you this as a courtesy." Even though she had abruptly switched back to English, her tone hadn't changed at all. "Your General is on my island, and, if you don't take care of this, then I will."

Seeing Higgins fight and shoot, hearing her casually talk about training and experience, even the story she had told them of the one time she had really lost her temper and sent three men to the hospital, none of it had really prepared T.C. for the reality that was Higgins on the warpath. Her voice was as cold as ice, her entire body suddenly transformed from small and slender to honed and dangerous, and he had no problem believing that the woman standing in front of him would kill whoever stood in her way without blinking. She ended the call with a careful jab of her finger and turned to face him and Rick.

"He's an idiot, but, in this case, he has no choice but to act." She didn't offer any explanation of who she had been talking to or of the course the conversation had taken, and they didn't ask.

"Can 'he' do anything to help us find Tommy?" Rick was shifting between worry and anger, and T.C. was right there with him.

Higgins seemed to have settled firmly on anger. "No. But there are people he can call. And, if he has any sense, he'll be doing that right now." She turned and walked back to her desk. "Meanwhile, HPD found the Ferrari, and I have facial recognition going over traffic camera footage from the area."

The two men exchanged yet another look, this one adding raised eyebrows to the wide eyes. T.C. desperately wanted to know how she had managed to get access to both facial recognition software and the footage from the traffic cameras, and he could see the same question hovering on Rick's lips, but neither of them asked.

"Surely HPD is doing the same thing?" T.C. crossed the room to put his hand on Higgins' shoulder. He knew she was blaming herself for Magnum's being kidnapped and was hoping to let her know that no one else was holding her responsible. He felt her relax just a little under the touch.

"I'm sure they are." She lifted her hand to rest on top of his, and her voice finally sounded a little more normal as she spoke. "But they won't be using this particular program to do it. Mine is faster than anything they have access to."

She didn't need to say that every minute could be a matter of life or death. They were all starting to get the disturbing feeling that Magnum might not have many minutes left to spare.

"It's okay, Thomas." He looked toward her as she spoke, wondering if she knew how wonderful she looked in the moonlight. "I'm here, you're going to be fine." Her voice washed over him, softer than he had ever heard her speak before.

"Juliet…?" Talking hurt, and the pain made his vision waver, made her flicker and blur. She shushed him, reaching out a hand to rest a finger on his lips.

He couldn't feel the pressure from it and wanted to tell her he wasn't that badly injured, that she didn't need to be so gentle and careful. If he was honest with himself, he _wanted_ to feel her touch. He was pretty sure his attempt to free himself had done some damage and thought he was bleeding out. Certainly the cold running through his body and the haze coating his thoughts were both grotesquely familiar.

He didn't want to die. But, if he had no choice in the matter, he thought he could do worse than slipping away with her by his side. He tried to reach out to her, but his hands refused to cooperate. Oh right, ropes. He'd forgotten. He stared at her, hoping she would understand, hoping she would take his hand. But she didn't move.

Wait. She wasn't moving. Why wasn't she moving? Why was she just standing there instead of trying to help him? For that matter, how was she standing there? The only way to get into the car would be clambering through one of the windows, and he was sure he would have noticed that.

"Higgy?" Magnum forced out the word, desperate to see her react. But she didn't even blink. He let his eyes close, swallowed hard, and when he managed to pry his eyes open again, the hallucination had vanished. He was on the verge of crying and wasn't that just the icing on the cake? He was going to die alone with nothing but a corpse, and he was the only person who was crying over it.

"Magnum?" He squeezed his eyes shut again. He didn't want to see another vision of Higgins. He was sure some people might have found it comforting, but he wanted the real thing, and no figment of his imagination was going to compare.

"Magnum!" That was weird, the voice was getting louder. Why on earth would he imagine her getting closer instead of just appearing like the last time? A sudden movement pulled at every muscle and cut and bruise, and he couldn't hold back the cry of pain that was wrenched out of him.

"Oh god; I'm sorry!" A light touch on his face had him shifting to lean into the caress before he realized what it meant. "It's all right. You're all right now, we're going to get you out."

His eyes sprang open, almost of their own accord, to see her half-crouched in front of him. She looked exhausted and was covered in mud. He was pretty sure she had never looked more beautiful.

Some sort of big fuss was going on not too far away, and Magnum hoped that meant Higgins had brought Rick and T.C. with her. Maybe, if he was really lucky, he wouldn't end up dying here after all. Or at least, if he did, he wouldn't do it alone.

Higgins was practically pushed into the ambulance after the EMT asked if anyone was riding with them. She had expected Rick or T.C. to climb in, but both men shook their heads as she looked at them. She felt a rush of gratitude for whatever twist of fate had brought these people into her life before she settled next to the stretcher and carefully lifted the hand nearest her. Magnum was still awake but seemed on the verge of passing out. As the EMT moved back, Higgins shifted slightly and leaned in close to Magnum.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. Magnum wouldn't even know he had gotten caught up in a plot to extract revenge on her, but she still felt the need to apologise. She didn't know how Roman had escaped or how he had managed to crash his car on a nearly perfectly straight stretch of road, but she did know that, as a way of taking revenge on her, he had intended to make Magnum suffer before finally killing him. She didn't like to address the fact that it would have worked.

Magnum was trying to smile, even as his eyes were closing, whatever the EMT had administered making it harder and harder for him to stay awake. He managed to squeeze her hand a little before his whole body slumped.

Higgins thought she should be worried that, when he found out what had happened, he would blame her for it. But, as she looked down at the man who had somehow come to mean so much to her, she decided that was a problem for another day. Right now, all that mattered was that Magnum was safe and, according to the EMTs, should be just fine with a little time. And time was something they had plenty of.


End file.
